h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Crime: an activity that breaks the established criminal law of the land.

Many attempts have been made to try to stop the apparently inexorable rise in crime figures in modern society. We have tried harsher punishments, more lenient punishments, more policemen, more technology, more concentrated effort to combat "serious" criminal activity.

We have even, in desperation, tried using differing statistical methods in the collection of figures. All to no avail.

One simple tactic has not yet been tried.

Reduce the number of illegal actions. Reduce the number of criminal laws. At a stroke we will reduce the number of crimes and criminals.

Some joke isn't it. Be serious you say. And I am.

Lets take a look at two particular areas of criminal activity that can be seperated out from the general area, sex and drugs.

I don't think that anyone will argue that these two activities provide huge incomes for criminals, and they also link together and cause knock on criminal activity as well.

I also argue that these two activities, in themselves, constitute a different set of "crimes" in that they could be said to be personal choices that do not, of themselves, act upon third parties.

Let's look at sex. Prostitution is what we are discussing, the sale of sexual gratification for money. Because these activities are deemed as illegal, the organisation has been driven underground and is therefore difficult to monitor, control, and of course becomes a lucrative proposition for any one brave enough to risk imprisonment for providing the services.

Sex is a fundamental instinct. Particularily but not exclusively, amongst males the drive to obtain gratification is an ever present urge. Hence the vast industry that has grown up to feed the need. Because of society's attitude to these needs, the actual business of selling sex has been criminalised.

If prostitution and the related areas of the sexual gratification industry were legalised and licenced, there would be a number of immediate benefits.

Bringing the industry into the economic mainstream and into the open, would allow for the better monitoring of conditions for the workers. Sex slaves and the exploitation of women could be driven out of the trade. The workers would be in the same position as other trades with the right to association and unionisation, minimum legally applied working conditions and practices.

Once legalised the costs would reduce as sexual gratification became socially acceptable and the profits would also be reduced as working conditions and pay and benefits were increased. Companies of good standing in the leisure industry might move into the trade and raise the general standard and provide healthy competition to the previous criminal monopoly, who might decide to move on to activities which showed a better return.

The other benefits would include an increase in the health of the workers who would be monitored in the same way that other industries, like food processing, which can impact on the general health of society.

Now we turn to the illegal drug industry. Vast sums of money are made in this business. Legalising ALL drug use and by allowing legitimate companies to be set up to manufacture and distribute these substances to any adult who wishes to purchase them would mean that quality controls would be introduced so that only good quality drugs would be on the market leading to a definite rise in the health of the user community and a consequent decrease in the money required in the Health Service budget to treat the effects of poor quality drugs such as are currently available.

As with the sex industry the business would be brought into the open and the people organising the trade would became visible and accountable. Because the trade would be officially sanctioned the prices would be reduced, the need to turn to petty crime to maintain what at the present time is a very expensive addiction would be reduced at the very least.

The removal of the monopoly of the criminal fraternity and the opening up the sector to legitimate businesses would result in higher standards, more openess, more knowledge of the scale of drug usage.

A final benefit would be a vast increase in Tax income. Instead of spending large sums in the pursuit and prosecution of offenders, the Government would be taking in money from company and income taxes and national insurance payments.

By criminalizing an activity, it immediately makes it profitable to undertake, the profitability is connected to the risks undertaken. If that activity is a normal human urge, then legislation merely opens up the activity to criminals. It removes the activity from public view, and removes it from reasonable control. Removing the criminality from the sale of sex and drugs will, at a stroke, make a huge difference to levels of criminal activity and in many cases, strike a death blow to criminal (and terrorist) organisations.

crime is only commited by the living, therefore life itself should become a crime, and the sentance is death,

It's several years since I read a facts & figures article about legal brothels and i'm too lazy to search the web to see if I can find it. Thus, based on my memory only: Legal, *safe* brothels were set up in a European country (and of course subject to VAT, income tax, employers' contributions....) with prostitutes who had to undergo health checks and who were encouraged to use safe practices. According to the article, the legal places would be almost surrounded by illegals who had to work more to undercut the legal prices, offer more *daring* services, be younger as a further enticement....
The legal brothel manager said that legal brothels were barely worth it due to the illegal prostitutes who were worse off than ever.

The idea expressed in post 1 has its positive points but the article I read suggests it's not that easy. Given the internet and the fact that prostitution is often hidden among other services (massage - not all, I know - and escort servics to name a couple), purely legal prostitution is probably unattainable. Legal prostitution with, we could assume, more and more rights and safeguards would probably be regulated out of existence pretty quickly.

The drugs thing is another issue. I'm not sure that legal companies (paying VAT, tax...) would be much cheaper. Many junkies would still have recourse to crime to pay for their habit. Free drugs for hardened addicts might have the unintended result of encouraging youngsters to go for *adict-status* as quickly as possible. IMO, drugs is a tougher issue than prostitution.

Is prostitution in fact illegal in the UK? In many countries, pimping, sollicitation and living off the earnings of a prostitute are illegal whereas prostitution itself is not. There might be some way of allowing free-lance prostitutes to work in relatively protected surroundings but I think that getting them to pay tax on all earnings might be a pipedream. Perhaps we should be aiming for the 'least bad' solution that tries to eradicate sex-slaves (although economics-driven 'slaves' will probably always exist).

Criminals will always find ways to earn easy money fromp the desperate.

Brothels are legal in Germany.

What about illegal activities and human trafficking for the sex trade?
Btw, the country I mentioned *may* have been Denmark or one of the Benelux countries.

The description you gave sounds like the Netherlands. There prostitutes have trade unions and such stuff. Though I´m not sure if that has given rise to the lots of illegal brothels that you mentioned.

It's a while since I read the article but I think it referred to street walkers who hung around the legal brothels

The ideas expressed in Post #1 are quite valid and worth consideration.

But based on my experience of government bureaucracies from Motor Vehicle Regulation to Health Care and Building Codes
I have serious doubts that they could provide either drugs or sex in any sort of satisfactory way.

Both institutions (sex and drugs) could be made safe by legalising them in free market competition where the consumer would
determine whose services were best. Governments would provide only licensing and inspection standards and prohibit monopolies.


~jwf~

In a tabloid driven democracy objective law making isn't a politically productive stance.

Not often I get to say 'Quote of the week that!'


~jwf~